musical musings from the frozen north:
torontopia, mont royal city and kawartha kottages

Sunday, January 31, 2016

Dec 2015 – Jan 2016 reviews

These reviews ran in December and
January in the Waterloo Record and the now-defunct Guelph Mercury.

Highly recommended: Erykah Badu, Colleen, Scott Merritt

Well worth your while: Eskimeaux, Meridian Brothers

Arca – Mutant (Mute)

This Venezuelan producer was plucked
from obscurity in 2013 to helm several tracks on Kanye West’s Yeezus, followed by a full-length
collaboration with Bjork (Vulnicura)—both
of which rank among the most experimental and audacious work either artist has
done. He also worked with breakout artist FKA Twigs, whose featherweight voice
softened some of his rougher sonic edges.

Here, on his second full-length, the
producer flexes all his muscles and makes a brilliant—although never remotely
pleasant or even welcoming—album best absorbed in isolation (or perhaps at an
art gallery). He offers snippets of melody that get swept up in thunderstorms
of distorted bass and sound design worthy of the freakiest avant-garde horror
film you’ve never seen. These are not beats, they’re beasts. Disoriented
beasts, at that. “I try not to let anything repeat for long enough that you can
get used to it,” he told Pitchfork
recently. That applies not just to musical phrases, but to notes themselves:
nothing is allowed to sustain in the least without mutating. Wait a minute,
what’s this ADD-addled album called again? Oh right… (Dec. 3)

Stream: “Sever,” “Snakes,”
“Umbilical”

Ruth B – The Intro
(Sony)

We can all cite people who’ve been
signed to big record deals based on YouTube videos—but Vine videos? Where you
only have six seconds to get anyone’s attention? Yet that’s the story of
Edmonton’s Ruth B, who, based on her popularity on Vine, landed her song “Lost
Boy” in the iTunes top 100 in 2015, which led to a deal with Sony. Now we have
a four-song EP featuring—well, three more piano ballads that sound a lot like
“Lost Boy.” The 20-year-old’s lyrics are, um, age-appropriate. But if Ruth B
isn’t in a rush to show us what else she has up her sleeve, it’s because she
doesn’t have to: a piano and that voice is all she really needs, especially in
the age of Adele. (Jan. 28)

Stream: “2 Poor Kids,” “Lost Boy,”
“Superficial Love”

Erykah Badu – But You
Caint Use My Phone (Universal)

Drake’s “Hotline Bling” inspired more
parodies and tributes than any other hit song in recent memory, which means
which should all be sick of it by now. When Erykah Badu broke a five-year
silence with this mixtape, released at the tail end of November, it could well
have been just another meme in the ether. But Badu, of course, came up with
something much more than that. The eccentric soul queen of the modern era shows
clearly that it’s not perfectionism that’s responsible for her limited
discography, because this was clearly whipped together quickly—made
spontaneously in 11 days, with all her vocals done in one take—and it’s just as
strong as anything else she’s ever done.

Yes, there’s an interpolation of
“Hotline Bling,” retitled “Cell U Lar Device,” another track that borrows from
Drake’s original sample, Timmy Thomas’s “Why Can’t We Live Together,” and
there’s a rapper doing a dead-on Drake impersonation on several tracks. The
rest of the mixtape continues with the phone theme—this is not Badu at her
lyrical height. But musically, it’s as lush, trippy and weird as her finest
work, and it’s refreshing to hear her come back and take ownership of R&B’s
freak flag. (Jan. 7)

Stream: “Cell U Lar Device,” “Phone
Down,” “Mr. Telephone Man”

Colleen – Captain of None
(Thrill Jockey)

Cecile Schott, a.k.a. Colleen, is a
French woman living in San Sebastian, Spain, with a bunch of ancient
instruments she utilizes in entirely modern and mesmerizing ways. Primarily a
viola player, here she picks up a treble viola
da gamba, a baroque instrument normally played with a bow; she plucks it like a
harp or a kora. There is also a melodica, which she uses to illustrate her
latent-until-now dub reggae influence, and many instruments are run through
something called a Moogerfooger delay pedal—you can’t go wrong with a tool
named like that. An avalanche of distorted percussion drives “This Hammer
Breaks,” which owes more to Congolese electronic kalimba band Konono No. 1 than
the almost ambient, new-age aspects of her earlier work. There are many
elements here that will appeal to fans of Owen Pallett or Joanna Newsom, but
Colleen’s songwriting and aesthetic are entirely different—and, for that matter,
fairly far removed from what even fans might expect from her. Captain of None came out in April 2015,
but I didn’t even see it on any “missed it” lists at the end of the year—which
is a crime, as it’s entirely enchanting and unique. (Jan. 14)

Stream: “Holding Horses,” “This
Hammer Breaks,” “Soul Alphabet”

Liam Corcoran – ROM-DROM
(independent)

During a decade when Canadian indie
rock boasted dozens of bands releasing one classic album after another,
P.E.I.’s Two Hours Traffic got slightly lost in the shuffle. By the time they
split up in 2013—after releasing their masterpiece, the pure pop perfection of Foolish Blood, which boasted one killer
melody after another and production worthy of a Spoon recording—great reviews
and a decent cross-country fanbase didn’t pay the bills. They split amicably;
guitarist Alex O’Hanlon had already started making waves in Toronto with his
new project, Alvvays. Corcoran stayed close to home and started writing new
material, with low expectations. This seven-song EP came out last fall; other
than a diminished production aesthetic, nothing has changed in Corcoran’s
world, other than a slight country tinge that suggests he might well turn into
a Nick Lowe of the next generation. Corcoran calls in favours here from ex-bandmates,
members of Hey Rosetta and Cuff the Duke and others to flesh out the sound. He
never wrote pop songs to please other people or to carve a career out of it; as
we can see here, that’s just what he does naturally, even when no one’s
looking. Hopefully, however, this music made it off the Island. (Jan. 21)

Stream: “July-eh, July-oh,” “Let It
Be Now,” “Catching the Stars”

Eskimeaux – O.K.
(Double Double Whammy)

Two American acts in 2015 helped
revive the lo-fi fuzziness of ’90s indie rock, augmenting their bedroom
recordings for official coming-out parties. One was Car Seat Headrest, whose
debut for Matador gathered various scrappy-sounding tracks from roughly a dozen
earlier online releases; his first album with a recording budget comes out next
month. The other artist was Brooklyn’s Eskimeaux, whose home demos were fleshed
out for this charming debut album, one that maintains all the intimacy of a
private project, but with complementary arrangements and instrumentation that
no bigger budget would ever improve. Eskimeaux is Gabrielle Smith (whose
bloodline includes native Alaskans, thanks for asking), who doesn’t let the
soft timbre of her voice stop her from conveying strength and power, whether
over ambient synths or a full rock band. On first impression, she comes off as
a twee carbon copy of Julie Doiron or early Belle and Sebastian; upon close
listen, however, her melodic gifts become more apparent, and she has no
shortage of startling lyrics, such as, “Everything I said spewed like sparklers
from my mouth.” Indeed, they do. And this debut is much more than just O.K.
(Jan. 7)

Stream: “Broken Necks,” “I Admit I’m
Scared,” “Pocket Full of Posies”

Meridian Brothers – Los
Suicidas (Soundway)

Collectors of electronic exotica will
know Jean-Jacques Perry and Gershon Kingsley, whose landmark record The In Sound From the Way Out, released
in 1966, was one of the first Moog synth pop albums (predating Switched on Bach by two years). The
anything-goes, screwball mood of that record influenced plenty of TV themes and
radio interstitials over the years, not to mention bands like the Beastie Boys
(who gave one of their EPs the same title) and Stereolab. But few artists have
managed to sound as delirious and wigged-out as Perry-Kingsley at their prime,
until an eccentric genius from Bogota, Colombia, named Elbis Àlvarez came along
with the Meridian Brothers.

Àlvarez is a conservatory-trained
rebel who loves reggaeton as much as he does György Ligeti, and whose music as
the Meridian Brothers sounds like Perry-Kingsley partying to Peruvian chica and
Colombian cumbia. Àlvarez pitch-bends his keyboards all around the circus-like
melodies while traditional percussion rides underneath synth bass lines,
creating what Àlvarez says is not surrealist pop music, but, in true South
American tradition, “magical realism.” Whatever he wants to call it, it’s
exactly what you want to hear in the middle of a Canadian winter that tests
your sanity. Because sometimes a musical madman from the tropics is the only
thing that makes sense. (Jan. 7)

Stream: “Dinamita,” “Amargura,”
“Lagrima”

Scott Merritt – Of
(independent)

When Scott Merritt was last in the
public eye—back in the mid- to late 1980s when videos for his unique brand of
art rock were played on MuchMusic—his records were crammed full of the latest
technology, sometimes to a fault, distracting from his songcraft.

Scott Merritt is no longer in the
public eye. The Brantford-born songwriter has been hiding out in Guelph for the
last two decades, quietly raising his family, recording albums for Fred
Eaglesmith and others, releasing only one album of his own in the last 26 years
(2002’s The Detour Home).

So it’s a joy to suddenly discover
this quiet gem, which snuck out into the world in April, on which Merritt
employs little more than ukulele—and easily and instantly buries any hang-up
you might have about an instrument that every hipster and cutesy pop act seems
to be slinging around these days. Merritt’s magical hands extract delicacy and
intricacy out of those four strings. To flesh out the sound, he relies largely
on droning accordions (perhaps harmoniums?), trombone sections, clarinets
alternating between only two notes, and upright bass by the incomparable Jeff
Bird. For a record with no percussion and comprised largely of languid tempos,
the rhythms are pulsing and surprisingly strong on a such a quiet record.

If this was merely a perfectly
arranged and produced album, that would be one thing. But when a songwriter of
Merritt’s calibre saves up more than a decade of sketches and brings them to
fruition, we’re obviously witness to the best the man has to offer. There’s a
song on here, “Meteor,” that I first heard Merritt play live more than 10 years
ago—and I instantly remembered the melody and lyric vividly. Surely, I thought,
I know this song from a previous album? Nope. That song stuck with me, with
only one impression, for more than a decade. Always a good sign. (Dec. 3)

Stream: “Meteor,” “Bragging Rights,”
“Willing Night”

Gregory Pepper and his Problems – Crush Crush Crush (Fake Four Inc.)

You can only handle being called
“underrated” or “unsung” so long. Which is probably why Guelph treasure Gregory
Pepper pours everything he has into 10 songs on a 7” single he released last
fall, in particular a 51-second screed about overhyped peers—a song titled,
ahem, “I Wonder Whose Dick You Had to Suck.” Got your attention yet? Pepper’s
concision and immediacy—and irreverence—serves him well here, with maximum
melody, dual guitar leads, and lean arrangements that make Weezer’s first album
sound like Smashing Pumpkins. Every song here is under two minutes. Surely you
can spare two minutes to—in the immortal words of Jean Chrétien—put some Pepper on your plate. (Jan. 21)

Stream: “Welcome to the Dullhouse,”
“I Wonder Whose Dick You Had to Suck,” “There in the Meadow”

Savages - Adore Life
(Matador)

“If you don’t love me, don’t love
anybody,” is the opening line on the second album by this British band beloved
by fans of early ’80s post-punk. It’s a bold claim, and interesting in the
context of a new act many consider to be some kind of rock’n’roll saviour, an
honour usually bestowed on a band that hearkens back to the past, something
that’s been true of everyone from Bruce Springsteen in the ’70s to the White
Stripes in the 2000s. Savages owe an enormous debt to Joy Division, Siouxie
Sioux, early Cure and other bands of that era; they are, for better or worse,
ideal to recommend to an old friend whose musical taste has been static since
they first discovered those artists. Once you step outside that large shadow,
however, do Savages bring anything new to the game? Do they have to? Singer
Jehnny Beth possesses a powerful instrument: chilling, commanding, compelling.
The band behind her has evolved into a more muscular unit since the promising
debut album in 2013—not surprising, as Beth once wrote that “the music of Savages was imagined to function like armor. Four
women facing the world, facing the industry, protected by their sound,
indestructible.” No doubt they’re a killer live
band, and none of this trivial discourse has anything to do with the band as
musicians or songwriter or performers. But if they are, in fact, the most
exciting new rock band of recent years, then maybe rock music doesn’t have
anything new to offer at all. Maybe the most exciting band of 2026 will sound
just like Beat Happening or Sebadoh. The most exciting band of 2036 will sound
like Arcade Fire or the Strokes. And the most exciting band of 2046 will sound
like Savages. (Jan. 21)

Stream: “Sad Person,” “Adore Life,”
“T.I.W.Y.G.”

Boubacar Traore – Mbalimaou
(Lusafrica)

This Malian bluesman has been making
music for about 60 years; this latest release came out last January, but it’s
certainly not trendy or timely and there’s never a bad time to rediscover this
man’s immense talent. Produced by kora player Ballaké Sissoko and featuring
Traore’s favourite harmonica player, Frenchman Vincent Bucher, Mbalimaou
features more instrumentation than the hypnotic, sparse solo recordings of
Traore that first caught my attention many years ago. It’s hard to imagine more
sympathetic players, however; backing up a man who doesn’t need any help, they
provide perfect, tiny touches. (Jan. 7)